Lists: ‘The most memorable images of 2010’ and ‘2010 in photos’

Today’s ‘List Friday’. As I’ve gotten older I’ve found it easier to accept discordance. Or is it ambiguity? Anyway I’m talking about two pieces of opposing evidence. For example, three days ago I wrote I have the type of mind that prefers the active process of converting the written word to mental images, to the passive process of watching and listening to a movie [1]. Yet several ‘List Friday’ lists have been lists of photographs (most recently two weeks ago [2]). And then there’s the adage ‘A picture’s worth a thousand words’ [3, 4]. Anyway today I’m back to a list of photographs. As this is the first ‘List Friday’ of 2010, two lists. Both on the same topic. The first is salon.com’s list of ‘The most memorable images of 2010’. There are 50 images. The blurb’s here [5], and the images here [6]. Next, from the Boston Globe’s ‘Big Picture’ section, is ‘2010 in photos’, which comes in three parts with 40 photos in each part [7, 8, 9]. Take from these 170 pictures what you will. Anyway, enough from me.

P.S. I promise – Scout’s honour – that these are the last ‘best of 2010’ lists I’ll subject you to.

P.P.S. Happy birthday, darling Brendon.

List: '47 photographs from NG's 'Photography Contest 2010'

Today’s ‘List Friday’. With only seven days left in 2010, today’s is the second-last ‘List Friday’ for this year. And the choice of available lists is overwhelming: not only ‘Best of 2010’ lists, but ‘Best of decade’ ones too. It’s all a bit too much. How to decide which one to post today. Aha – a solution: put it out to the universe. Ever customer (or reader) responsive, I decided I’d go with the first list someone sent me – whatever the topic. That ‘someone’ happened to be darling Emily. And the list she suggested is a beauty: from the Boston Globe’s ‘Big Picture’ section, it’s 47 photographs from National Geographic’s ‘Photography Contest 2010’ [1]. The Contest’s open to the public. (Actually the entry deadline was 30 November). The 47 were posted on ‘Big Picture’ before the deadline. Scroll down and see them all here [2]. Which are your favourites? I think they’re all pretty amazing. If you want to see the finalists and the winners in the three categories, i.e. Nature, People, Places, you can access them here [3]. Wow! And to think that all the photographs in the Contest are taken by the public, i.e. not professional National Geographic photographers. They make me want to put my camera away – permanently. But I won’t. I’ll persist. However I know that no photo I’ll ever take will be remotely as fine as any of these. Ho hum.

P.S. Thanks, darling Emily, for sending me this list.